


In Full Flower

by Algy Swinburne (milverton)



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Retirement, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24361717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milverton/pseuds/Algy%20Swinburne
Summary: “Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship." -Joseph Addison
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 28
Kudos: 86
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Summer 2020





	In Full Flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelindeed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelindeed/gifts).



> Dear rachelindeed,
> 
> This was inspired by your Joseph Addison quote-prompt. I also recently finished the gorgeous show _Gentleman Jack _, which includes a Victorian era same-sex marriage (the first known same-sex marriage, in fact!) so I may have been feeling some type of way.[This Tumblr post ](https://acdhw.tumblr.com/post/182444841455/watson-appears-to-be-wearing-a-gold-bracelet) was also inspiring. (Padlocked marriage bracelets were fashionable in the Victorian era!)__
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read. Happy Holmestice!

It was in the year following my wife’s death, enduring days on end alone in my flat and warring with pell mell thoughts of Holmes and my wife, that a truth revealed itself--I did not miss my departed wife nearly as much as I missed Holmes, and Holmes was still very much alive, ensconced in 221b, just a 20 minute cab ride from my quarters.

Over the years, I better understood that I held and had held since the beginning of our association affections beyond the fraternal variety for Holmes. Often, when those feelings became too insistent, I attempted to tamp them down in various ways, whether it be busying myself with trifling pursuits, throwing myself into my career, or, most crucially, barring myself from seeing him too often. The latter tactic, however, only proved time and again to make matters worse.

I was tired of the rigmarole. I yearned to see him; I yearned to be in close proximity to him again, in any fashion, even if those oppressive feelings of love remained.

I would move back into 221b.

At once, I took a hansom to Baker Street and, even though I hadn't seen her in some time, was greeted by Mrs Hudson in her typically brisk manner. 

“I must say, Dr Watson,” Mrs Hudson said as she slowly ascended the seventeen steps to 221b. “I cannot imagine any prospective lodger being as interesting and queer as Mr Holmes. I will be bereft when he is gone.”

I puzzled over her wistful--or perhaps morbid--statement as I replied, “There is no one quite like Mr Holmes, that’s for certain. But I suspect there are many years left in the old man just yet.”

When Mrs Hudson announced me and I stepped into the old sitting room, I understood her implication immediately. 

There was no furniture to speak of, only boxes with various indecipherable markings upon them. The sight of the near-naked sitting room, a place wherein I spent my halcyon years beside the man with whom I was in love, caused the back of my eyes to prick with tears. 

“Watson!” Holmes exclaimed. “How unexpected.”

Holmes had stepped out from behind a stack of boxes, and looked genuinely surprised by my appearance.

“I could say the very same,” I said coolly, throwing out an arm to indicate the bare room. “What on earth are you doing?”

“I am moving to Sussex,” he said with an unapologetic plainness. 

I felt as if he’d dealt me a blow. 

Holmes and London--Holmes and 221b--were like warp and weft, so intertwined. How could he possibly leave? 

More pertinently, how could he possibly leave me?

“And why have you not apprised me of this move?” I said chillily.

“It was a new development,” Holmes said. “I’ve only just decided to officially retire, though I have had my eye on a pretty little _chaumière_ for awhile.”

“Retire!” I cried. “But Holmes, why?”

“I can no longer abide this flat, nor this city,” said Holmes. “I also wish to master new pursuits, and the country will be far more conducive to my concentration.”

“Good god,” I blustered. “This--well, this is very astonishing.”

“I suspected it might be.”

He seemed oddly remote and defiant, and it hurt my heart to bear the brunt of it.

It was apparent that an era was ending. I was too late.

Holmes was marching proudly into retirement, starting a new life that did not require our companionship, and abandoning me, taking no second thought. I was to be left to wilt away under the unsmiling gray of the London skies. 

“I will miss you terribly, Holmes,” I said candidly. 

Holmes’s jaw was tight. “Will you, in fact?” 

“Why, of course I will! How could you doubt it?” I said, offended by Holmes’s dour tone.

“You have not visited me in many months and you live very near, so forgive me if I am sceptical of your assertion.”

I did not know how to articulate a defence that would have concealed my true feelings for him, and I decided it was not worth it to strain myself in concocting lies. 

“I have thought of you daily, Holmes, these past few months; thoughts of you took me out of the abyss of grief, and I cannot quite explain why I haven't visited, but know that you will consume my thoughts even more once you take leave of London.” I strode forward until I was close enough to see the crow’s-feet wending out of the corners of Holmes’s eyes, which before had been piercingly accusing and had become soft and thoughtful after my speech. “I will be miserable without you near, but I understand your need for reprieve and novelty.”

“Then the solution is simplicity itself. Come with me.”

I blinked, dumbfounded by Holmes’s vagary, but felt a twist of excitement within. “Come with you? _Live_ with you?” 

“Yes; I would die a happy man if you were to again be at my side.”

My breath caught at the declaration. “I would like nothing more than to be with you, Holmes,” I said impassionedly. 

Holmes roved his incisive eyes over me until he stopped to meet my gaze head-on. He looked intense. “Since this is admittedly your area of expertise, I will defer to your explanation. Do you mean what you just said in iterations that would _épater la bourgeoisie_?”

I was unsure as to the exact translation of the French, but I didn’t want to say as much, lest I face Holmes’s chastisement, but context clues gave away his general meaning.

“I will always be your stalwart friend, but I would whole-heartedly embrace any enhancement to that friendship, however unspeakable, that you should accept.”

"And I should be humbled to accept any and all of what you offer me," he said, somewhat strained with emotion. 

We looked at each other for a beat, in mutual disbelief.

Holmes then placed a gentle hand on my forearm and hesitantly slid that hand up to my bicep. It was certainly foreign for us to touch like that, though it felt natural and incandescent; to have been deprived of any kind of intimate touch from him for all those years was a crime. 

He moved that exploratory hand sideways, sprawled flat against my chest like a great white spider, then down along my waist until it rested on my hip. 

“You are a fine specimen of man, John,” Holmes said wonderingly as he looked at the hand that remained on my hip, then shifted his line of sight slightly eastward and decidedly centre from my hip, which made my body hot with desire. 

“Sherlock,” I said, voice gritty with need. The wait to kiss him had reached its breaking point. “Might I--”

“You might,” Holmes breathed, sounding as equally affected as I.

And so I took him in my arms and we kissed.

\--

In the final days of my residency in London, that liminal period between my old and new life, I endeavoured to visit landmarks and districts of which I was fond. Although I could, of course, return to the sombre metropolis whenever I so chose, I did not foresee making the effort all too often. Holmes’s sudden move could not have been more opportune; I was getting long in the tooth, had grown weary of crowds and noise, and found I was very amenable to the pastoral solitude of the South Downs.

Somewhere along this good-bye tour, I found myself in Hatton Garden, that area of London reputed for its jewelry shops. As I strolled before glass windows with glinting, opulent wares on display, I did not expect my mood to turn dark. It was twice before that I journeyed to that very place to purchase marriage-rings for my wives, who have long since passed from this earthly plane. Their premature deaths were uncommonly cruel, their abundances of kindness and beauty great losses to the world, and an outsider would not hesitate to categorise me as an unlucky man; a habitual widower. 

However, though I loved my wives, I have never felt unlucky. For I have always had an inviolable love in my life; I had simply, until that point, never pledged myself to that love, for many extenuating reasons, though I had courted it _sub rosa_ for many years. Holmes and I had been in an unconsummated marriage of sorts, for all that time. Very happily, the marriage was finally consummated, though not solemnised, and it was unjust that I could not solemnise a marriage borne of a purer love than any other I had experienced.

My thoughts stormy, I stopped before a shop’s window to distract myself and was taken by attractive enamelled gold bracelets advertised as engagement items, as in the fashion of some years standing. It was a piece of jewelry that would look most becoming on a pale, slender wrist.

The thought took hold and did not relent its grip.

What, indeed, should stop me from proposing marriage for a third--and final--time?

\--

Months after I was situated in the homey Sussex Downs cottage, I asked Holmes with not insignificant trepidation if he would accompany me for a walk. He agreed easily enough, and we set off into the mild, cloudless June afternoon. 

For a majority of the excursion, we walked in silence. I was unnerved by the prospect of what I was about to do, and I hoped Holmes’s keen observation skills had taken the day off. My agitated state caused me to glance at Holmes excessively, my trouser pocket laden with the gold bracelet (wrapped in cloth to prevent Holmes’s suspicion), fearing his judgment and ridicule for my prospective overture. By no means was Holmes a man of society; he was a Bohemian through and through and did not worship at the altar of the institution of marriage. But I had reasoned, in the many days leading up to that especial one, that my grand statement coupled with our certain brand of partnership, was, if nothing else, in some defiance of the very institution.

We continued our ramble over verdant land that rose and fell like waves, ostensibly sprawling out into a nothingness, until we saw a chalky promontory in the distance. As we stood near the edge, I looked at Holmes, who paid me no mind, eyes closed as he bathed in the whispering sea breeze, and I allowed my gaze to linger, admiring his sharp profile which cut a striking figure against the pearly blue sky. He was as stately and handsome as ever, like a majestic bird, even in his advanced age; the country air was good to him, though it had been just a short time that he’d dwelled there, and he looked less harsh, younger. Since I was finally allowed to openly look at Holmes in that fashion, that is, in gawking appreciation of his curious beauty, I did not know if I could ever stop.

“I’m surprised I’ve not yet died of the suspense. Do say what it is you wish to say, John,” Holmes said without opening his eyes, a small smile playing at his lips.

My stomach was then in knots, though I took solace in the fact that Holmes seemingly had not followed the scent of my unease to its source. 

“Can’t I admire the view in peace?” I said charmingly.

Holmes’s eyes met mine with a playful glow. “The sea is, indeed, breathtaking.”

I took his spindly hand in mine, and pressed a kiss to a knuckle. “You are far more of a wonder.”

“You’re being evasive,” Holmes said, though he was preening. 

He allowed me to remain holding his hand, which was undoubtedly a perk of the sparsely populated countryside, where few unfriendly eyes could fall upon us.

“And here I thought you were in retirement, detective,” I teased, though Holmes was not won over by my charms completely, and had a weather eye on me. I trudged on manfully. “Let us continue; the sea can only hold my interest for so long.”

As we walked, I tried to ignore Holmes’s newfound keen interest in me and my doings. I knew I could not prolong the inevitable any longer, otherwise Holmes would expose me, somehow. We happened upon a secluded wood, colourful and fragrant with scarlet pimpernel, heartsease, violets, and primrose and so quiet that I could hear Holmes’s intakes of breath. It felt as if it were millions of miles away from the thrumming city, as if Holmes and I were the first human souls to set foot on that ground.

And in that sense, it was a perfect locale--something Holmes and I could consecrate and have for ourselves.

I could see that Holmes was no longer captivated by the beauty of the natural world, instead watching and waiting for my next move.

I closed a shaky hand around the jewelry in my pocket and withdrew it, holding it aloft to glitter underneath the slivers of sunlight that filtered through the tall trees.

Holmes stared at the bracelet and, uncharacteristically, said nothing.

“Sherlock Holmes,” I said gravelly, then cleared my throat. “Will you do me the greatest honour and take me as yours?”

Holmes looked rapidly from the bracelet to my earnest face, then back again to the bracelet.

“I was almost certain I already had,” he said, at last. “Or perhaps that was a dream, after all.”

I took Holmes’s hand and padlocked the bracelet onto his wrist, as if he were then and there bound to me, then pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand.

“I wish for our formal union; I wish to claim you as my husband. Our decades long entanglement must be afforded the same respect as any other love.”

“My dear John,” Holmes said softly, cupping my cheek in his bracelet-less hand. “We needn’t the pageantry of matrimony for validation of our affections.”

“I know you think little of such things,” I said without pause, having anticipated Holmes’s dismissal, “but it would mean the world to me for you to be my spouse, in that way."

Holmes smiled and stroked my face with delicate care, his thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “Then we shall, without question, be married.”

I pushed up to kiss him, my heart soaring.

\--

For our ceremony, Holmes secured the matching gold bracelet I had bought around my wrist, and we shared gentle, solemn words and kissed, languorous, in our garden, amongst our bee kin--on English soil, beneath the heavens. 

Holmes was springy and bright, despite his opposition to the sacrament, and as for myself, I was invigorated and felt as if all was right in the world, for the odyssey of my association with Holmes had, at long last, reached its flowering stage.


End file.
